Bothvar Beorcolsson
Winter seems to go on longer than usual. I haven’t been keeping track of my days, but it feels like it should be spring already. Food has grown scarce. I’ve spent all my mornings fishing and I’m lucky to catch even a small guppy every other day. I’ve even taken to eating the mushrooms several times a day. Longhorn tells me that the mushrooms and cave water keep them sustained all winter if they can’t find meat. Or at least, I think that’s what he was trying to tell me. His drawings in the dirt are not the best. I’m understanding the way he talks. It’s not just with the different grunts, growls, and other noises he makes, but his body tells a story. The way he moves his arms and his facial expressions combined with each unique noise tells me at least how he feels and what he is trying to tell me. I’ve learned that he calls the mushrooms urrgill, and he holds one hand in the shape of an upside bowl while the other hand is underneath it like a tree trunk. The glow ore he calls barrggill while holding one hand into a fist and the other he hovers above it, wiggling his fingers. I think his fingers are to show that it is glowing.
I’m also thinking that he is understanding my words as well. He knows when I say mushroom, I’m referring to the glowing mushrooms, and the same with the glow rock and meat. Meat in his way of talking is yum yum, with one hand going to his mouth and the other going to his belly. Although I think that might refer to more of the act of eating instead rather than the food itself. It’s hard to tell. Snubs and Blue-Eyes are always looking to play and I oblige them. Both have a lot of energy and are very fun to be around. They do a lot of goofy things that make me laugh. Blue-Eyes also likes to cuddle and rest her head on my lap. I’ve come to enjoy their company. I see them as an adopted family. They tell me many stories about their people in the mountains to the south. Spending time with them is one of the brightest moments of a typically dark day. I haven’t seen the sun since it started to snow. The clouds own the sky and night is still winning the battle against the day. Daylight still only lingers for moments in the sky while night seems to last forever.
I fish in darkness, do my blacksmithing in darkness, build my strength in darkness, and when daylight finally comes, I only have long enough to chop a tree down, haul it up the mountain and chop it up into what I need before the light disappears.
I still can’t believe I’m strong enough to drag an entire tree up a mountain; it feels as light as an iron two-handed battle hammer. I just put the cut end over my shoulder and take it up the mountain as if I was carrying a spear. I’ve made a few tables and chairs. Unfortunately, my glow ore tools and weapons I’ve made are too heavy for a normal wooden table and I’m too heavy for normal chairs, so I’ve had to make reinforced tables and chairs with the metal. I made several trips up and down the mountain to gather more trees as I make more furniture with it, including a reinforced bed, a reinforced weapons rack and many other things. I use more than half of it for the fire while I turn some of it into arrow shafts, and whittle gifts for the yeti. I’ve made myself some plates, bowls, spoons, traps, and a comb. I’ve given some of the plates and bowls to the yeti. I’ve even made a door to the stone wall I put up at the entrance of the cave. It took me forever to gather the stones I needed for the wall, but it keeps snow out. I used clay as glue to hold the stones together. Most of it is frozen, but now I have a nice glow metal pickaxe I made that can pick through anything. I’ve even discovered a way to sharpen the metal by heating it to make it soft and then putting it in a vice trough where the bottom comes down to a point. I put the heated blade in the trough like vice and press the sides against each other. The blade develops a finer edge than anything I can do without it. While it’s still relatively soft, I also use a coarse piece of glow metal to run up the edge of the blade to make it even sharper. It needs to be coarse enough. The good thing about this metal is that I only have to do it once. The metal doesn’t seem to dull at all, and it’s all but unbreakable and can cut through almost anything. I can chop a tree down with a single blow of the ax I made. With the newly sharpened edge, I can cut through iron with ease.
I’ve also made myself a helm and a full chest plate body with pauldrons, wrist guards, and shin guards. I used leather made out of a goat hide I saved. I’ve taken to wearing it all the time to maintain my strength.
I also have to be careful. With the pickaxe, I can ruin everything that isn’t the glow metal. For the love of the gods, it’ll even chip the glow ore. I do need to come up with a better name for the metal. It doesn’t glow once you heat it. It’s just a dark emerald color.
As night came, I just finished making a long knife with the emerald metal. Ehh, that doesn’t sound any better… I’m pulled out of my thoughts when I hear a banging against my door. I open it to find Blue-Eyes all frantic and afraid. She has tears in her eyes. She desperately pulls at me to come follow her. I grab my sword and battle ax and follow her up to her cave. Long before we reach their cave, I can smell a rotten, foul stench and know something is wrong. As we reach their home, my eyes fall upon the ground where Longhorn, White-Hair and Snubs all lie in a bloody mess in the snow. Their corpses are being desecrated by those shadow creatures with the antlers. There are much more than last time. I let out a roar with all my burning rage and charge at them.
The first one is too late to react as I slice its head off. Two others come charging at me and kiss the edges of my ax and sword. They are far slower than the ones I fought before. I can hear one charge behind me as I slice open the one in front of me. Its claws can’t scratch my armor. I twirl and tear my sword through its torso, cutting it in half. The other two retreat, running in fear, but I do not let the slower one escape as I chase it down and cut off its legs. It screams and struggles, but not for long as I slice its arms off before I bring my ax down on its head.
Then I track the one that got away, following its trail up the mountain. It leads me to another set of caves where more of those fiends’ rest. I charge in and cut each and every single one of them down. Even the younglings. I leave none alive. By the time I finish, I’m soaked in their blood along with the ground and walls of the cave. I walk back to find Blue-Eyes clinging to her father, mother, and brother. The sight hurts my heart. I put my hand on her shoulder and she turns and buries her face in my arms. I take Blue-Eyes back to my cave before going back to bury Longhorn, White-hair, and Snubs. They deserved so much more. I find one of Longhorn’s horns and take it back with me.
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